Okay so this post is for two things which -to me - don't seem obvious in Live so I thought I would ask and share. I noticed how some people were looking to use live as they might an echoplex or a repeater. After some pondering I seem to have figured out a way to do this that is similar to how I use those two devices so I thought I would share.

First set up a track to monitor your incoming sound. I do this for instance on track nine with a delay, tremolo, and auto filter all mapped to a midi footcontroller so I can turn them on and off like pedals. Now the next part may be obvious but I couldn't find anyone already doing this so........
I hope this makes sense. Set up a series of tracks to receive audio from your monitor track but turn the monitors off - I do this for 1-8. Next turn the record on for all of those tracks. Now go and remove all the stop buttons but one for each track so you are left with a series of single record buttons running diagonally from track 1 scene 1 to track 2 scene 2 etc. all the way to track 8 scene 8. So now with the default set to "start recording on scene launch" and by mapping a mere three buttons via midi to "scene up", "scene down", and "scene launch" one can select a scene/track and with a single scene launch button begin recording/start playback then move up or down to "overdub" much in the same way you might with a echoplex or repeater without stopping the previous loop. I know this won't bump things out in the way you do through overdub looping but perhaps it could be used differently as one could leave stop buttons in scenes further down to stop earlier loops.

So my question is this. Does anyone know how to map the undo key in midi land. Currently I have mapped command z to the punch in switch on the 828 mkII which works fine for undoing things when I make a mistake but it would be nice to do it all from a midi controller. I have tried to use control aid but I couldn't quite figure it out.

hey guys, I use OSX and 828MK2.
It would be great if I could undo and redo.
I couldn't quite understand how to do it.
Can anybody tell me the best setup for this ?
I never inserted foot pedals into the 828mk2.
And I would really like to know how to set up the OSX, too.

Talking about looping, this is a great AU for the task.
Augustus Loop. It's crazy.
Check it out if you have the time.
Demo's are for free.

ok, I'm kind of a n00b here (and to music production in general), but let me see if I am reading this right before I invest the money in this software instead of the hardware I was going to purchase (RC-20XL Loop Station).

You can loop audio (non-midi input, say i wanted to do some turntable drumming and loop that in real-time) live and not only that but you can map the patterns on different tracks so these different tracks can be stopped, and started again if you want to change up the song structure live?

zerosignal wrote:ok, I'm kind of a n00b here (and to music production in general), but let me see if I am reading this right before I invest the money in this software instead of the hardware I was going to purchase (RC-20XL Loop Station).

You can loop audio (non-midi input, say i wanted to do some turntable drumming and loop that in real-time) live and not only that but you can map the patterns on different tracks so these different tracks can be stopped, and started again if you want to change up the song structure live?

like I said, I'm a n00b so...

Thanks in advance.

Yeah, you can do all those things with live, you can even mix the different loops in realtime, and using a free plugin like the ellottronix XL you can get the same functionality as the rc20xl, overdub and what not.

BUT the best thing about it is that you can download a demo and try it out as long as you like

First off, let me apologize for not understanding exactly how you do this. If at all possible, could someone provide more detailed instructions? For example: "setting up all tracks to receive from the monitor track", and also "remove all stop buttons..." I am sure these things are easy, but I simply cannot figure out how to do it yet.

I am interested in using Live for the sole purpose of playing over loops that I have created live.

12ax7heaven wrote:...noticed how some people were looking to use live as they might an echoplex or a repeater.

thanks , that was a good trick! Here's another one:

This is a way to record into looping delay plug-ins instead of recording into Live clips (i.e. audio files on the hard drive). The good thing is that you can create instantly evolving music by overdubbing into the delay plug-ins. You can also combine this with normal live clips that play back in a more static way (better for beats?).

Anyway, I'm on mac and I like the AU plug-in Augustus Loop (for PC there is Lexicon PSP42 that is almost as cool). Like 12ax7heaven i use one track for input of my live instruments. Then I use three audio tracks where I open Augustus Loop (I think three simultaneous loops are enough to keep joggling with on stage. Less is more if you crank it up However, these three looping plug-in tracks are also set to monitor and to the same input, but the thing is that each Augustus Loop is set to "wet only". No direct signal passing through. This means that when I'm recording into a looping plug nothing is heard until the delay comes back at the first repeat.

Now, a really cool feature with Augustus Loop is that it has a PITCH parameter. This can be assigned to a midi expression pedal - and there you have a whammy pedal for whatever stuff you layer into that loop. But i don't do that; I prefere only feedback (the level of the next delay repeat) and loop length.

This trick - using silent audo clips as "fx bank" for automizing plug-ins - can of course be used just about any plugin. But normally you can't to that in Live because you have audio files playing back from the clips and if you advance to another clip the first one will stop playing (we're still on the same track). Now we have the audio happening in the first plug-in of the channel strip and this opens up to use clips as containers for dynamic automating of as many plug-in parameters you'll ever need. Cool Nicht Wahr?!

For pitch I actually stumbled over this trick yesterday; you can open a silent audio file of one bar in a clip on a Augustus Loop track. Then you create some groovy melody pattern by penning in Clip Envelopes! Rhytmic phrasing can be written either in the Augustus Loop "effect out" parameter or by inserting a Live Gain plug-in and automating the Gain. This I have found better because Augustus Loop tends to not answer as quickly on the midi command mapped to "freeze loop" if there is too much pitch and volume data streaming at the same time.

Well, the bottomline is that you can overdub layers and layers into the same stereo loop (or many loops at the same time if you like, and then you might re-tune them later... or whatever). If you kick a loop into reverse mode it sounds really cool but you will probably never get it back into the beat timing, since they loop freely - only locked to the tempo, not to bar position. But that can be cool as well. Anyway, you can make very hard sync sounding stuff by filtering the loops through clip envelopes that do quantized gating as well as melody pitching. And if you combine it with traditional recording into live clips you have a pretty broad pallette for on-the-fly "found sound" live looping.

the most extreme use of this trick would be to set up a session where you sing one looooong note into a mic and have Live play it back in beebs, melodies and bass lines.. lol. Guess that would be more fun to program than to perform on stage, he, he... I like to go somewher in the middle, like the Echoplex or Repeater.